


Reunion

by Cerusee



Series: Batfam Week 2018 [2]
Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics)
Genre: Cass cries, Gen, SO, Steph cries, big batgirl mood, i just finished Steph’s Batgirl run, that’s what I do to the ones I love, watch me try to justify funky canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 12:32:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15509934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerusee/pseuds/Cerusee
Summary: Steph and Cass meet up for the first time since Cass gave Stephanie the Batgirl costume and split town.  They’ve got a lot to talk about.





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> For the Batman 2018 event. Prompt: “Homecoming”.

“So I guess you finally got a passport, huh?”

And there she went again, Stephanie “no filter” Brown.

The girl in front of her dropped her bags off her shoulders, and hurled herself at Stephanie, knocking her flat on her back, nuzzling her head against Stephanie’s shoulder. Passersby started to stop, and murmur, with at least one camera coming up and flashing.

“Please delete that,” Stephanie announced, from the floor. “This is not an assault, we’re totally fine, my friend is just super-duper extra and she hasn’t seen me for awhile.”

There was an assenting murmur, so Steph let it go. After a minute, Cass finally rolled to her feet with a grace that Steph knew she’d never have as long as she lived. She’d be jealous, if she didn’t know what it had cost Cass, to have that grace.

Steph clambered onto her feet, with a slight assist. Once upright, she put her arms around Cass and dragged her into a less-one sided hug. Cass hugged back so hard Steph thought she was trying to burrow inside her.

“I missed you,” she said, into Cass’s ear. “I’m so glad you’re back.”

Cass didn’t say anything, just clutched Steph even harder, and then her whole body shook, as if she was crying, and there was a creeping wetness on Steph’s collarbone.

“Welcome home, Cassandra Cain,” Steph said.

***

Steph would have preferred tacos, or even milkshakes, but Cass wanted tea in Bludhaven—it was 8:15pm, but whatever, Steph was no stranger to late night caffeine binges—so Steph obligingly drove them to that shop Cass liked. Upside: it wasn’t hard to find parking this time of night, even though this was what passed for a hipster district in this loser city. Cass seemed bummed that the cashier didn’t recognize her, but the tea was pretty good. Cass got the daily special, a green tea soy latte; Steph got black mint tea with sugar.

“How have you been?” Steph said, just a little, okay, a _lot_ , moist around the eyes, because it was _Cass_ and she’d missed her to death every day, until life had piled so much on her than she could barely think. And that wasn’t even taking into consideration the whopping 25% or so of her brain Steph had dedicated to higher education. (Which felt generous, under the circumstances.)

Cass looked down at her tea, and then up again, making a whole series of faces at Steph.

“All over the place, huh?”

“Yes,” Cass said. “All over the place.”

“I never really got…” Steph swallowed, and took a big gulp of tea to ease her throat. “I never really knew why you left. Why you gave up Batgirl. Why you gave it to me.” She looked up at Cass, willing herself to maintain eye contact. “You were _so good_. You were the best one. Why did you give it up?”

Cass was staring down at her tea again. “You. Needed it. Weren’t okay.”

“I was—I was fine,” Steph said. She had been, really. Life after she… _came back_ was kind of confusing, yeah, and there was the weirdness of trying to deal with her mom, and that wasn’t even touching the eventual godawful toxic mess that turned out to be her dad, this time with an extra two dead bodies attached. But. There was college, right? She’d gotten into Gotham U, and that was a big deal for her. “I was. You know. Coping and stuff.”

“No. Needed something. Needed to—” Cass lifted her head, and looked at Steph. “You needed hope.”

Steph blinked hard against the burning in her eyes.

“You did not believe in you any more,” Cass said very carefully. “But I still did.”

Steph closed her eyes, and felt hot tears track down her cheeks. “Cass,” she said, and her voice was thick, and she felt the snot building up in her nose. “Do you know just how much I _missed_ you, every day?”

“Not a mistake,” Cass said.

“No. You were right. I _did_ need Batgirl. I needed it _so much_. And I made it mine, Cass,” Steph said, swinging her head up almost defiantly. “I really did. It was hard, and I don’t think I could have done it on my own—I had a lot of help—but I’m Batgirl, now, Cass. Just as much as you were. Just as much as Babs was.”

Cass gazed at her softly, and then stroked Steph’s teary face with the back of her fingertips. “I know.”

“Cass,” Steph said, frightened already about what she was going to ask. “When you left—”

“Needed to,” Cass said.

“But you just _left_. You literally threw the Batgirl costume at me, and then you just _left_ , and I never knew why.” Steph wiped at her eyes. “I was trying to be the best Batgirl I could be, and I didn’t know why you’d stopped, or why you weren’t there anymore. I wanted to talk to you, I wanted to ask you for advice, but you were gone.” She bit her lip. “I haven’t been able to ask this because I’m so scared, Cass.” She put her face into her hands. “Did you leave because of what Leslie and I did?”

“ _Steph_ ,” Cass said, softly.

“I know it was terrible,” Steph said, her voice breaking. “It wasn’t my idea, I mean not at first, but then I went along with it because I thought my whole life was broken, because I’d made mistakes no one could ever come back from, don’t you see? People _died_ because I was so dumb. Because I was so, _so_ stupid. I thought the only thing I could do was to throw my life away and start a new one. Until I couldn’t do that anymore, and I had to come back.”

“Shh, shh, shh,” Cass said, as Steph broke down, sobbing. She slid out of her seat and around the table to Steph’s side, and wrapped her arms around her. “Shh.”

“I’m so sorry,” Steph said, weeping. “I miss you so much.”

Cass cradled her chin over Steph’s sloped back. “Missed you too,” she whispered. “Saw you.”

“What?”

“Dreamed about you.”

“Oh,” Steph said, and she grabbed a napkin and wiped messily at her eyes.

“When things were...bad. So bad. You were there with me,” Cass told her, tears slipping down her own cheeks. “So...so glad you are _here_ now. Glad you came back.” She closed her eyes. “So glad.”

***

They were walking down the street, fingers interlaced, Steph still nursing her tea-to-go, when she asked, “Cass...why _did_ you go? Where were you? I heard you were in Hong Kong, but I never understood why you went or what the heck you were doing there. You don’t even speak Cantonese.”

Cass made a noise that wasn’t quite a hum. “ _He_ wanted me to.”

“Cass, you don’t do _anything_ you don’t want to do,” Steph said. “You are literally the most stubborn, independent person I’ve ever know, and I’ve said hello to myself in the mirror.”

Cass tilted back her head to look up at where the stars would be, if the Gotham sky was ever anything but red fog at night. “It was…” she blinked, and grimaced. “He asked me to? But he was gone.”

Oh. A dying wish. “The last thing Bruce asked you to do was to leave your family and your friends, go live in a city you’d never been in, where you didn’t speak the language? What the hell for?”

Cass pulled her hand from Steph’s, and waggled it around. “A promise.”

Steph’s face twisted. “Come on.”

Cass waved her hands around a little more. “ _Protection?_ He made a promise. He was gone. Me. I was...the promise.”

“Bruce was...protecting someone? And he asked you to be the backup, if he wasn’t there anymore?”

Cass nodded, vigorously.

“That was...you still shouldn’t have had to leave us all behind, though, Cass,” she said, and her eyes were hot and wet again, not for herself this time, but the idea of Cass being all alone, _again_ , when she’d just lost someone who mattered so much to her. The man who Steph knew had promised to make Cass his _family_. And Steph knew she’d been alone for so long—Steph was suddenly angrier at Bruce than she’d ever been before, at the thought of him telling Cass to be alone again, just for some stupid mission. “That wasn’t okay.” She’d heard from Tim, what Bruce said when he told Cass he wanted to adopt her: _you’ll never be alone again_. And then he’d turned right around and broken that promise.

Cass stopped in her tracks, and put a hand on Steph’s shoulder to drag her to a halt as well, spinning Steph around to face her. She put her hands on her elbows and rocked her arms back and forth, with a small smile.

“A baby?” Steph said. “Wait, you know ASL?”

Cass looked confused.

“This means ‘baby’ in American Sign Language,” Steph said, mimicking the rocking motion, and fast-shuttering the lightning strike of grief that hit her as she did.

Cass saw it. Of course she did. She looked confused, but Steph knew she’d seen it. She nodded, slowly, distracted by her open concern for Stephanie.

A baby indeed, then. Some things translated easily across the language barrier. Steph squeezed her eyes shut, and tried to forget the thing she couldn’t change. “A baby, huh,” she said, and her voice was weak, but she kept on speaking until it felt stronger. “Was there a family to go with her?”

“Uh-huh,” Cass said, and when Steph dared look at her again, there was warm smile on her lips. “A big family. Some trouble...before. I helped.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Warm house. Lots of food. Lots and _lots_ of food. Soft bed.”

“I bet they loved you,” Steph said, and reached over, and took Cass’s hand. “Because you’re _you_.”

Cass closed her eyes, and there was a small smile on her face. She looked as warm and happy as Steph had ever seen her. “Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> I could never for the life of me figure out why Bruce’s dying instructions to Cass were to split town and move halfway across the world, separated from her entire support network while she grieved the death of one of her most important people (besides, y’know, “bad fucking writing” and “DC shits endlessly on Cassandra Cain”). So I made up some bullshit that gives her a solid reason for going to Hong Kong, and doesn’t leave her emotionally stranded and alone for the period when Bruce was “dead”. You’re welcome.


End file.
